Natsume's Heart
Genre: Romance/Drama
Fiction Rated: K+
Summary: What if Gakuen Alice does not exist and they're just ordinary teenagers? Mikan is sick and dieing and Natsume is a what! MxN pairing
Author's note: I don't own Gakuen Alice. My very first fanfic so please be gentle with your reviews ok?
Chapter 1
She couldn't breathe. Gasping for air, Mikan Sakura struggled to keep from blacking out and not to panic. It wasn't as if this hadn't happened many times before. Above her, she saw the faces of emergency room doctors and nurses. Behind them, she saw her anxious parents.
"We got her here as fast as we could," her mother told one of the doctors. "It came on so suddenly. We didn't have any warning."
"Yes, Mrs. Sakura. We're doing all we can for Mikan."
A doctor eased an oxygen mask over Mikan's face. A nurse shot a syringeful of medication into the IV line already hooked to her arm. Immediately Mikan felt her breathing slow, her heart stops its awful fluttering. Electrodes were stuck onto her heaving chest and hooked to a bedside heart monitor. The green squiggly line looked like an electronic scream. Mikan knew that in a way it was a scream-a cry for help from her virus-damaged heart. She should be used to it. It had been going on for four years, this failing of her heart, this struggling, stutter-step dance it did when she least expected it. She also knew she'd never get used to it.
"How are you feeling, Mikan?" The doctor leaned over her.
His face came into focus slowly. Why did doctors always speak in the first person plural? As if they were victims too? This doctor wasn't. He couldn't possibly know what it was like to live like a broken toy, never knowing when she'd wind down. "I'm…fine," she managed to say.
"She's not fine," her father contradicted. "I want her heart specialist called immediately."
"Dr. Misaki's already been paged. She should be here soon."
As if she'd heard her name, Dr. Misaki breezed into the room. She was a tall, slender woman in her forties, with pinkish hair pulled back in a severe bun. She wore no makeup.
"What's up?" she asked the ER doctor.
He rattled of a list of medical terms, which Mikan ignored. My heart is lousy, Mikan wanted to say sarcastically. And you-all can't fix it. The muscle, weakened by a virus when she was twelve, had turned her into an invalid, and there didn't seem to be anything medical science could do to change it for her.
"Look, Mikan, I'm going to have to admit you," Dr. Misaki said, looking down at her.
"No---" Mikan gasped, trying to pull off the oxygen mask.
Dr. Misaki held down Mikan's hand. "I know it's not what you want, but we have no choice."
"School---"
"Can wait," the doctor said firmly.
"I…just started back…" Tears welled in Mikan's eyes.
"I know. But there's no choice. You've got pneumonia in your left lung, and that's making your heart work harder. We all know it can't work harder." Dr. Misaki's voice was soft and kind, but the blow it delivered to Mikan felt devastating.
"How long this time?" Mikan asked, blinking back tears. Over the past year, she'd spent a total of six weeks in the hospital. Now, here at the start of the final two months of her junior year, she was going to have to drop out of classes once more. It wasn't fair.
"As long as it takes," Dr. Misaki answered.
Mikan's mother took her hand. "I'll get your teachers to prepare work for you. You'll be able to keep up."
"Keeping up isn't the problem," Mikan said. How did she explain that her long absences from school made her a social outcast? Cliques were set. Friends were bonded. Boys had already chosen girlfriends and dates to the junior-senior dance. Mikan only had one true friend---Hotaru Imai---and with this newest sentence of hospital imprisonment, she had little hope of fitting in again.
"I'm sorry, honey."
Mikan nodded, resigned. She had no arguments left. She was going to be hospitalized regardless. Arguments and tears took breath and energy, and at the moment, she had neither.